Sometime after Crypto Forest wrapped up in 2021, an idea popped up for a sequel that further dwelved into exploring more Cryptids from the West VIrginia folklore. This idea was turned into a small gameplay demo on the TF2 workshop under the name of "basement_demo".

This iteration of a singleplayer sequel in a tf2 map was bogged down by the lack of more sophisticated tools to make such an experience possible. The way the monster worked in basement_demo was the same logic as a payload cart, just walk back and forth in the same hallway, I experimented with having branching paths and having the monsters try to find the room you are in, but it really was not up to the quality I expected out of this project. On top of that the issue of no proper way to save and load data, having to play through the entire map from the start if you messed up, no way of adding custom weapons, making it just a sub-par horror walking simulator with puzzles...

The singleplayer sequel to Crypto Forest, "Grafton Mansion" was scrapped. I moved on to other projects in the TF2 community, working on Jailbreak maps where I got to refine entity usage, and achieve some really cool things with just hammer logic, until the game suddenly received a vscript update.

At first I was afraid to try it, and didn't yet understand the true potential of this addition, my first try at vscript was jb_miami, then refined my vscript usage with some more projects. The Quake 1 vscript was probably the most influential, making me realise, we can have full on custom animations for weapons, and some really crazy custom things, and that's when...

It started small, a custom pistol model on custom viewmodel animations shooting zombie spies, and it eventually evolved into what is a passion project aiming for a full singleplayer campaign with a fully restructurized idea for the main character, gameplay, soundtrack and story with a 20x grander scope than what was originally even imaginable with just hammer logic.

Originally, this was going to be just a single tf2 map that was going to be uploaded to the workshop because it actually could be possible! Until I thought some stuff through, and realised people could play this with like different configs etc, that could ruin the experience, that's why we are moving to standalone so that everyone can experience the campaign the best way possible. This whole game is actually just a stripped down version of TF2, with most of the systems running on Vscript in-map (including the main menu). This will hopefully allow for way easier modding for the playerbase.

---------------

The development is split into two parts, the first part is getting all the systems ready, such as finishing all the enemy behaviour, boss fights, gameplay elements. The second part of development will be building the whole campaign, where progression through the campaign, cutscenes and voice acting will be finalized.

After almost 2 years of development what we have right now in the first part of development is:

• A total conversion of Gameplay from the Movement Shooter of Team Fortress into Survival Horror

• A New cast of characters and NPCs

• A story seperate to TF2, contained within its own universe

• New Unique Weapons for the game

• Enemy executions for every Weapon

• An Inventory system

• Crafting system

• Interactive minimap

• Environment interactions, closing doors to slow down enemies, opening drawers for items

• Item pickups

• Save rooms scattered throughout the campaign, inspired by classic Survival Horror titles

• Saving and Loading data

• Cutscenes

• Time of Day progression throughout the campaign

• A new original soundtrack

• Dynamic Lighting

• Stealth, Enemies receiving sound alerts

• Enemies using multiple attacks, performing dodges on player attacks

• The wendigo becoming a full on realized enemy type, with a brand new 3d model with variants, multiple wendigo subclasses, stealth and group behaviour

• The grand introduction to the never before seen Cryptid in the Crypto Forest univsrse, and the campaign's main stalker enemy, The Grafton Monster

• Alpha prototypes of Boss Fights

• Alpha prototypes of Puzzles, Key items

This game has no deadline, I am pretty much the only dev behind it, getting help from other coders in the TF2 Community and asset creators that have lended their help in allowing usage of their models in this project, to speed up development time significantly.

But I am confident because we have so much work done in just under 2 years, we could be eye-ing a release in another 2 years. When the first part of development and all the groundwork systems are there, the campaign should just be a drag and drop kind of deal. Keep in mind I want this project to be of the highest quality possible, I don't want to rush anything, I usually spend around like 6 hours working on one "system", (recently it was making the ragdolls for the wendigo lol), sometimes I get two "systems" done in one day, depends if it's graphics design for the menu, coding new behaviours or making a new model from scratch.

This is the main passion project for me right now and I am very happy how this stacks up compared to the original hammer logic Crypto Forest, we have gone from "emulating" a wendigo with simple sprites and sound cues to actual breathing, calculating enemies that pose a challenge to the player when outnumbered.

That's all for now, I wanted to clue people in on more of the tech behind the game, as the store page for now will remain a bit more obscure, due to not everything really being "final" yet.